The Home Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

under a woollen cap with a ragged tassel that looked as if a kitten had wrestled with it.
    The passenger thought they might look like their father putting him into a category unworthy of the handsome mother.
    For the next twenty minutes the train alternated between a rocking tearing speed and dawdling within sight of one of the half dozen stations on the way to the city and the passenger alternated her attention between the girls and the mother although at times she indulged in a fancy that she was not their mother but someone minding them.
    â€œI can move and your mummy sit here,” she said to Sara with sudden inspiration.
    I’ll find out for sure.
    Sara put her head against the seat back, tipping her face and closing her eyes with pink coming into her cheeks.
    The passenger looked to Lisa for an answer and Lisa turned her eyes towards her mother seeing only her profile and the long peaked collar of her blouse lying on her honey coloured sweater.
    Lisa looked into the passenger’s face and gave her head the smallest shake.
    Poor little soul.
    The passenger stared at the mother knowing in the end she would look back.
    The mother did her eyes widening for a second under bluish lids with only a little of her brow visible under a thick bang of fair hair. There was nothing friendly in her face.
    The passenger reddened and looked at the girls.
    â€œYour mummy’s so pretty,” she said.
    Sara swung her head around to look at the mother and Lisa allowed herself a tiny smile as if it didn’t need verification.
    â€œDo you like having a pretty mummy?” the passenger asked.
    The mother had turned her attention to the window again and her eyes had narrowed.
    The passenger felt as if a door had been shut in her face.
    â€œAre you going into the city for the day?” she said to the girls.
    Sara pressed her lips together as if she shouldn’t answer if she wanted to. Lisa’s mouth opened losing its prettiness and turning into an uneven hole.
    There’s nothing attractive about either of them, thought the passenger deciding that Lisa might be slightly cross-eyed.
    She sat with her handbag gripped on her knees and her red face flushed a deeper red and her brown eyes with flecks of red in the whites were flint-hard when they darted between the mother and the girls and vacant when they looked away.
    After a moment the mother turned her head and stared into the passenger’s face. The girls raised their eyes and looked too. The train swayed and rushed and all the eyes locked together. The mother’s eyes although large and blue and without light were the snake’s eyes mesmerizing those of the passenger. Sara swung her eyes from the passenger to the mother as if trying to protect one from the other. Lisa’s face grew tight and white and she opened her small hole of a mouth but no sound came out.
    The mother keeping her eyes on the passenger got up suddenly and checked the location through the window. Sara and Lisa stumbled into the aisle holding out frantic fingers but afraid to touch her.
    Sara stood under her mother’s rump as close as she dared her eyes turned back to see Lisa holding the seat end. The train swayed and clanged the last hundred yards slowing and sliding like a skier at the bottom of a snow peak stopping with a suddeness that flung Sara and Lisa together across the seat end.
    This was fortunate.
    The mother level with the passenger now leaned down and sparks from her eyes flew off the hard flat stones of the passenger’s eyes.
    â€œI’m going to kill them,” the mother said.

LEAVING HOME
    There was a practice at Berrigo to gather at the Post Office in the afternoon to wait for the mail.
    The doors closed while it was sorted and by the time they were ready to open a crowd swelled by children from both the public and Catholic school had filled the porch.
    Weeks before Sylvia McMahon was to leave for Sydney to find a job she was singled out for